Family mourns El Paso soldier killed in Guatemala

An El Paso family is mourning the loss of a 24-year-old U.S. Army soldier killed this week in an accident during a training exercise in Guatemala.

Spc. Hernaldo Beltran Jr.'s deployment to Guatemala was his second to the Central American nation where, during his first tour, he helped build schools for impoverished children, his mother Hortensia Gallegos said while flipping through photos of her son in the living room of the family's home on the far East Side.

She said that the school that he was helping build when he died was named after her son during a dedication ceremony on Friday.

"I just think that is so nice and such an honor," Gallegos said.

Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina on Friday issued official condolences and said Beltran died while helping the most needy of Guatemalans.

"He was a very good person with everyone," said Beltran's wife, Yesenia Murillo. The couple was married 15 months ago and have a 3-year-old son, Brandon.

Beltran was an Army radio operator assigned to the 56th Signal Battalion at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.

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The U.S. Embassy in Guatemala said in a news release that Beltran died Tuesday when a large tree branch fell on a group of soldiers working on an engineering project as part of the Beyond the Horizons 2014 joint-military exercise. Three other soldiers were hurt in the accident, which remains under investigation.

Since 1994, the governments of the U.S. and Guatemala have worked on humanitarian projects to develop infrastructure as part of Beyond the Horizons.

Beltran served in Guatemala in 2012 and in Panama last year as part of Beyond the Horizons. His mother said she has a video of Beltran playing soccer with children on the grounds of the school that he and soldiers built.

"His service to the people of Guatemala and the United States will always be remembered," the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala said in the news release.

Beltran was born and raised in El Paso and was the oldest of three brothers, a stepbrother and four stepsisters. He was a 2008 graduate of Americas High School, where he had been in Junior ROTC. His family said he enjoyed being in the Army and had re-enlisted.

"He is a very responsible and caring young man," his mother said.

Gallegos said that her son wanted to better himself and joined the Army during the time that violence raged in Juárez, where his grandmother and his wife were living at the time.

"I don't know if it was a factor (in his decision to join the Army) but that helped a lot because he wanted to be a FBI agent or something like that and he thought that being in the military — it would be easier to get his foot in the door," Gallegos said.

Gallegos said that her son had been described by his Army supervisor as a "diamond" because he was eager to serve on the deployments.

Beltran's family plans to attend a memorial service Wednesday in Fort Sam Houston. A funeral service in El Paso will likely be scheduled for late next week, his mother said.

"He left a lot of friends," his mother said. "There are even friends who called him their brother."

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